[jlarocco]

I agree they should cooperate, but I'm curious about the 16k forks.

What's the point in forking a project like this? Adding changes and submitting pull requests would be the obvious thing, but that doesn't seem to be the case because there are only 4K commits and less than 30 open pull requests. So anybody know what's up with all the forks?

[fapjacks]

I'm guessing the forks are a form of bookmarking. At least for my part, I fork every single repository that might even be slightly interesting for me in the future. Hell, I even fork repos that I explicitly hate, just so I can keep tabs on them or learn more about them.

[jlarocco]

I guess bookmarking would explain it, but seems like the wrong tool for the job IMO. Forking means you have to do extra work to get the latest version of the code, even if you're not making any local changes. Using the "watch" or "star" feature or an actual bookmark means you'll always go straight to the most up to date version.

> Hell, I even fork repos that I explicitly hate, just so I can keep tabs on them or learn more about them.

I don't know what it means to "hate" a repo, but whatever it means, forking the repo actually means you won't be keeping tabs on them because your personal fork will have no activity until you pull from the original. And if you need to go to the original to get updates, why not just go straight there?

[fapjacks]

You don't get it, sorry. Not in a mean way. I just like to learn about things I do not like, because sometimes I change my mind. Forking a repo means cloning it to my local network because of some automation I have, and I learn applications by playing with code.

[gog]

There is a "Star this repo" option for just this case.

But forking has its benefits if you want to make sure that the original repository does not disappear.

[fapjacks]

I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but unfortunately, I've had a few repos disappear because the original was served with a DMCA. Github is fast when presented with a DMCA (but also equally fast when presented with a counter-DMCA notice, thankfully). You'll need to clone it off of Github if you really want to ensure its survivability.

[b_bellomo]

You can 'watch' repos. You should do that instead of forking them.

[PuffinBlue]

You hate some repos?

[fapjacks]

Do you like systemd?

[PuffinBlue]

Touché